Gogoi invites Ramadorai to set up shop

After last year's high profile visit of Infosys's Narayan Murthi to explore IT related business opportunities in North East, which did not materialise apparently as the region did not have any 5 star hotel to host visitors, it was S Ramadorai, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), who paid a visit to Assam this time.

Ramadorai led a six member high level delegation to Guwahati.

He had a detailed discussion with Tarun Gogoi, the chief minister of Assam, during his five-hour sojourn here.

Gogoi, the state's industry and IT ministers, and Jairam Ramesh, union minister of state for commerce and industry, met him.

The TCS team was shown two locations by the state government, one near the airport of 140 acres and another near the IIT of 100 acres, to establish there operations here.

Gogoi had a detailed presentation to Ramadorai today at the IIT.

Ramadorai later assured Gogoi that he would, in a couple of weeks time, take the dialogue forward.

"It is a significant day for North East" said Ramesh, hoping that TCS might stretch upto Guwahati this time under its third leg of expansions.

"In its second round of expansions, TCS started its operations in Kochi, Bhubaneswar and Pune, and in its third round of expansions, the company should look beyond east of Kolkata", said Ramesh, working to get IT giants to the North East.

"In North East, two cities "� Guwahati and Shillong, have the infrastructure and potential to come up in the IT map of the country", said Ramesh.

Last year the total exports of country's IT industry was $ 32 billion. North East, which had three IT parks, one each at Guwahati, Imphal and Gangtok, had contributed a negligible $ .5 million.

Ramesh said that the reason why TCS was looking seriously towards Guwahati was because of the IIT.

"Existence of IIT has been the single biggest reason in drawing TCS here", he added.

He advised TCS to look at Guwahati as a pivot for all its activities relating to south east Asia.

"Guwahati should be the hub for what TCS does in south east Asia", he added.

Last year TCS had recruited 200 boys and girls from the region and has been quite happy with their performances.

In December this year, NASSCOM will be conducting an Assessment Competence Test to recruit at least 20,000 boys and girls from the region.

With killings and blasts topping the chart in Assam, security was an issue for TCS and this was evident as Ramadorai raised it during his interactions with the chief minister.

Security concerns were the single biggest reason keeping IT companies away from the North East for all these years.

"Security is certainly an issue. More than infrastructure, it is the security perception in the minds of people outside, that is acting as a deterrent for private investment in the state", Ramesh said.

In order to change "this mindset", Ramesh said that there should be couple of success stories from North East which would eventually help transform the IT scene of the region.